Friday, 22 April 2016

The Propaganda Game

Review

The Propaganda Game (2015)

98 minutes
Classification: 15

by
Dermot Hudson

Spanish
director and actor Álvaro Longoria has won critical acclaim for films about
Fidel Castro and Ernesto "Che"
Guevaraover the years. Last year he set out to
investigate and explore the theme of the propaganda war against the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). This film is a result of his visit to the
DPRK arranged by the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) and the DPRK Committee
For Cultural Relations.

The primary strength of the film is that the fascinating footage of the
DPRK, showing the carefree lives of working people in the DPRK and the fact
that Alejandro Cao de Benos, the founderand President of the KFA, plus officials of the DPRK Cultural Relations
Committee and ordinary working people are able to put the case for the DPRK.
They are able to point out that housing is free of charge and that the people
of the DPRK do not pay taxes.

Some of the Koreans interviewed expressed
surprise and dismay at some of the lies being peddled about the DPRK, such as
the story about laws about hairstyles!

Unfortunately, probably as a concession to capitalist commercial
interests, the film does include some anti-DPRK material from various
'defectors' and so-called experts on the DPRK including Andrei Lankov, a
Russian “liberal” academic who is professor of Korean Studies at Kookmin
University in Seoul, the capital of the puppet south Korean regime, along with
some prominent members of the so-called “human rights” gang.

The
audience is also treated to theatrical and plastic celebrity defector Yeomi
Park, who also appears in the film. The DPRK has made a documentary exposing
this unsavoury young lady and her background. Others have also taken apart her
story.

“Seeing is believing” as Koreans say and basically the reality of the
DPRK disproved these ill-minded and hired slanderers. We saw Korean people at
work and at play, relaxing or at wedding ceremonies. Longoria said that he saw
no evidence of the black market capitalist economy that some so-called experts
claim exists. Longoria, though, is clearly neither a socialist nor a communist because
he seemed to be puzzled by how the DPRK's construction boom is funded. “Where
is the money coming from?” he asked twice. Well we can tell him that is
socialist planning, socialist ownership and Juché that provides the wherewithal for all
the construction.

Regrettably and bizarrely Longoria appears to doubt that the Catholic
church in Pyongyang is genuine and he also has a one-sided take on
reunification, seeing it only as meaning south Korea absorbing the DPRK. He
appeared to be totally ignorant of the DPRK proposals for a Confederal Republic
and the inter-Korean agreements of 2000 and 2007. The possibility of the south
Korean people rising up in a revolution against the puppet regime and
reunifying with their brothers and sisters in the north also appears to have
escaped his mind.

Nevertheless, despite these
shortcomings the DPRK and the KFA in the form of Alejandro Cao de Benos shine
through in the film. The film contains a rare interview with Alejandro's
parents for the first time. The no-nonsense, straight talking style of
Alejandro in defending the DPRK is impressive. Some so-called friends of the
DPRK have often shied away from such a robust defence of the DPRK but Alejandro
was there in the film defending the DPRK, hammering the lies.

If you are prepared to stomach some
extreme anti-DPRK material and take some things with a pinch of salt then this
is a very good film to watch. It is on a very limited UK release now.